The cowardice. As evidence of US meddling in Alberta’s political process grows, the Carney government buckled to pressure to withdraw its sponsorship of a conference because a panel mentioned US interference.
Last Saturday the front of the Globe and Mail blared “Elephant in the room”. The long article revealed how Republican operatives are assisting Alberta separatists who “have gone to D.C. offering fresh water and oil in exchange for American support.” In addition to hosting Alberta separatists in Washington, the Trump administration has made statements supporting their cause and MAGA-aligned media outlets have promoted Alberta becoming part of the US.
The Globe story prompted NDP MP Heather McPherson to request an emergency parliamentary debate “on reports of foreign interference in Alberta’s upcoming referendum.” For its part, Public Interest Alberta called for an inquiry into whether foreign interference had taken place.
A week earlier, media in Quebec published a slew of stories about possible US inference with the premier asking CSIS to investigate. The media cited a February essay from the Arlington, Virginia, based Defense Analyses and Research Corporation that called for the US to destabilize the Canadian federation by supporting sovereigntists in elections.
Amidst growing evidence of US interference in Canada, Ottawa buckled to Trump administration pressure and withdrew its sponsorship of a European disinformation conference. The reason is that Disinfo2026 featured a panel that discussed the US being a source of “foreign information manipulation and interference” and another that discussed US meddling in the arctic (most of the panels were about Russia and other official enemies.)
The Guardian reported that the Trump administration “pressured multiple countries to withdraw their sponsorship” and Ottawa buckled. Photos of the publicity at the conference in Lithuania show the Canadian logo covered up.
The cowardice is stunning. It shouldn’t be at all controversial to say the US has interfered in dozens of countries. In Haiti, for instance, Washington has meddled in an open and aggressive way for over a century. The list of countries in the Americas where the US has interfered in the political process is the list of countries in the Americas.
Long before the rise of Donald Trump and the Alberta successionist push, US interference was a far bigger threat to Canadians than alleged Chinese, Iranian or Russian interference. Not happy with Prime Minister John Diefenbaker’s attitude during the Cuban Missile Crisis or his ambivalence towards nuclear weapons in Canada, President John F. Kennedy worked to precipitate the downfall of his minority Conservative government. Kennedy preferred Lester Pearson’s Liberals who criticized Diefenbaker on Cuba and were willing to accept nuclear-armed Bomarc missiles.
“In the fall of 1962,” notes Peter McFarlane in Northern Shadows: Canadians and Central America, “the State Department began to leak insulting references about Diefenbaker to the U.S. and Canadian press.” Articles highly critical of the Canadian prime minister appeared in the New York Times, Newsweek and other major U.S. media outlets. On January 3 the outgoing commander of NATO, US General Lauris Norstad, made a surprise visit to Ottawa where he claimed Canada would not be fulfilling her commitments to the north Atlantic alliance if she did not acquire nuclear warheads. Diefenbaker believed the US general came to Canada “at the behest of President Kennedy” to set the table “for Pearson’s conversion to the United States nuclear policy.”
During the 1963 election campaign Kennedy’s top pollster, Lou Harris, helped Pearson get elected prime minister. Kennedy backed Harris’ move, though he opposed an earlier request for the pollster to help British Labour leader Harold Wilson, which Harris then declined. Washington may have aided Pearson’s campaign in other ways. Diefenbaker wondered if the CIA was active during the 1963 election while External Affairs Minister Howard Green said a US agent attended a couple of his campaign meetings in BC.
Canadians are hostile to Trump administration meddling. Recently 275,000 signed an official parliamentary petition urging the federal government to expel US Ambassador Pete Hoekstra due to his meddling in Canadian affairs, support for Alberta separatism and promotion of US annexation. If Mark Carney won’t go that far, at least he could avoid boosting Washington by cowardly withdrawing a conference sponsorship.
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